"What do Ryuk and Redival look like?" L asks, pulling himself out of ruminations about Light's relationship to Ryuk.

"Ryuk? You can't miss him. Always grinning, white face, black hair." Justyn snickers meanly. "Wait, that's not so unique. He'll bring apples from the human world. The others flock to them."

"And Redival?"

"With Ryuk, sometimes. They both look a little more like you than the others. They still have skin."

L wonders if the stitched-together mess he saw earlier was in fact Redival. It certainly wasn't grinning.

"Care to join us for gambling?"

L starts to shake his head, then realizes that it might be his only chance to find out something, anything at all about this place. He has not seen more shinigami in one place than he has around the torches.

"Yes, I would," he says.

"There's not much else to occupy your time. Besides, you can always find something to bet." Justyn's grin is more like looking into the mouth of a shark than anything remotely friendly.

L is surrounded by predators.

He follows Justyn back though the powdery sand that sucks at his feet and coats the legs of his jeans. It is still what passes for night here, the sky dimmer and the whole landscape furred into darker shades with no hard edges. He sucks in a lungful of that dry air, and his mouth tastes of dust. If the air is always like this, no wonder shinigami love apples. It would be wonderful to have the moisture and sweetness when his mouth feels like leather.

Justyn leads him back down into the pit where the group is still gambling by flickering torchlight. L ignores their continued complaints about the way he smells (alive?) and crouches on the rocky floor within the circle of light the torch forms.

"Deal me in," he says.

A shinigami with a plate over his eyes and linen bandages around his limbs leers at him. This is the one that protested L's scent before.

"What are you betting?"

"Nothing yet. I won't lose," L said.

"Cocky! I like it," the thing replies with a grin with his too-large mouth. "Maybe if I win, I decide what you bet."

"Suit yourself," L says with a grin of his own, though he feels no humor as he takes the cards Gukku holds out.

He soon finds that he has weapons they do not.

Intelligence. Wits. Creativity.

Games of chance like this don't leave much room for strategy, but L does far better than they do. They repeat the same techniques over and over, as if they have learned nothing from previous iterations. L would give up out of boredom and frustration if not for the opportunity to study them and listen to them speak.

The linen-wrapped shinigami is Deridovely, and he and Gukku do most of the talking and losing. Deridovely and the other shinigami present, Daril, both have some flesh or hair.

Daril has black hair all over her head, and only her faintly feminine laugh makes L think she is female rather than male. Her face is withered flesh plastered to a skull, and she wears far less jewelry than Justyn when the others wear none.

L wonders if Daril and Deridovely are newer than the all-bones Gukku and Justyn. Neither respond well to questions, so L contents himself with just listening.

He has nothing but time anymore, it seems.

He acquires the walking stick in his first game, much to Gukku's dismay, and he wins the headdress as well as a host of trinkets from the other players. Somehow the shinigami never seem to run out of useless garbage to bet with. When Gukku puts up a hand for its next bet, the skin withered and patched, L stares at it in disgust.

"That's not yours," Deridovely says with no more interest than he has given the previous winnings.

Gukku flashes both of its bony hands with more of a grin in its skeletal face than before.

"It's borrowed," it says.

"How long have you had it?" Daril asks.

"I got it while you and Deridovely were playing."

"Needed something more to bet, did you?"

"He won't come looking for a while," Gukku cackles.

Gukku and Daril laugh, and Justyn ignores them while shuffling cards. L glowers at the hand. Stitches are holding two of the fingers on, and the skin tones do not match, although it is hard to tell given how withered it is.

If it is Redival's, he now has a reason to search him out. Justyn wins the hand this round, but it is only for show as he immediately puts it up with the next hand of cards.

They gamble mindlessly, knowing that anything lost or gained here will just as quickly be surrendered again. Nothing has any worth here.

L follows their lead and lets his possessions go to other owners so as not to engender hostility. He is only interested in keeping the walking stick and gaining the hand. He receives it on the next round and gingerly stretches out his own hand to take it.

Revolting. It feels like paper under his fingers with a queer flexibility underneath. It doesn't tear as he picks it up, and he can feel the bones shifting slightly as he moves it. It was broken off neatly, right at the wrist, probably snapping through brittle tendons before being wrenched off.

"Is this Redival's hand?" L asks.

"Not his. He'd take my head off if I took his hand." Gukku laughs and the others join in.

L frowns internally, setting the hand aside. "Whose is it?"

Gukku waves a hand dismissively.

"That loner, Zahya. He doesn't gamble with us so I made him join in."

"Loner! As if that makes him stand out," Daril says.

The conversation degenerates into more meaningless chatter, and L decides it is time to retire. He has gathered that no one has any space of their own here. He could just as easily go to sleep right outside the circle of firelight, as did the others who woke, joined the games, and went back to sleep.

He wants some distance, however. He hefts the walking stick and his new hand and leaves the circle without a word. No one notices or comments on his leaving. He passes others who are sleeping or snoring noisily around the stairs.

Outside, the sky is slightly brighter, the closest thing that he has seen to day in this lightless hole. Maybe he won't sleep. He only wanted to sleep out of boredom with his surroundings, but the return of "daylight" reinvigorates him. He starts walking across the sand, intending to go straight to Zahya and return the hand. Maybe he will talk when the others could not be forced to focus. The trees weren't that far away from this cavernous hole, if he recalls correctly.

He has to have a task, a purpose. Searching without one in this wasteland will only drive him insane. He doesn't know where he's going but his feet always seem to take him where he needs to go.

Between one glance downward and the next, he sees a figure crouching off in the distance. Trying to tell himself that there are no real predators anymore when he's dead, he walks toward the beast-like shape without visible fear.

As he approaches, it is clear the thing is humanoid. It is crouched on its haunches, clad in black like so many of the others. It turns a milk-pale human face toward him to reveal eyes covered with strips of cloth rather than Deridovely's plates. Stringy black hair spills over its shoulders. It wears a collar, a wide leather band with studs all around it, and the leash attached to the back dangles to the ground. Its knuckles rest on the ground, ape-like with the flesh worn down to the bony nubs beneath.

"Human," it says with a rictus of a grin. "What brings you here?"

"I'm looking for the owner." L holds out the hand, as if it is nothing to carry on conversations with such perversions of life.

He lived most of his life convinced of nothing he could not see, even when it came to unsolvable cases, but the reference to shinigami during the Kira case scared him out of believing in only what he could see. Then when Higuchi's notebook revealed Rem standing where nothing had been before, he had been forced to admit the existence of creatures unseen.

Now the sight of these things has become weirdly commonplace. L is no longer disturbed by missing eyes, animated skeletons, and faces that are nothing more than skulls. Or so he thinks.

The shinigami arches its spine lazily before crawling over to L, as if accustomed to being on all fours rather than walking. The sight of the shinigami wasn't frightening, but the way it moves is unsettling as it slinks toward him on hands and feet, its spine curled like a feline with overly long back legs. It appears to be able to see even if blind, so it goes straight to the hand and tilts its head as if staring at it.

"Zahya," it says in a bland tone of voice. "Shall I take you, L?"

L flinches again at his name, but without warning, the beast leaps at him with a mad cackle of laughter.

L screams; he can't help it. The bony arms crush his ribs and the fingers bite into his flesh as it grabs him. Its weight knocks him off his feet, and he dangles helpless in the thing's grip. He barely clings to the hand and stick as wings burst from the monster's back.

Then he is airborne, the ground literally sucked away from his feet at dizzying speed in total defiance of gravity. His stomach plummets to his toes in that heart-stopping instant when the creature jerks upward and L's body is slow to follow.

He grabs mindlessly for the thing's midsection as the wind blows tears out of his eyes. He wraps both arms tight around its torso, one hand awkwardly clutching his prizes in cramping fingers.

It stinks of dust and dead flowers, but he clings like his life depends on it, terrified beyond logic at how far away the ground is and how fast they are flying. Knowing that he is dead still hasn't sunk in.

Its wings rise and sink languidly, far too slowly for their speed, and L stops trying to make sense of the physics of this place. It scream-laughs at his terror and plunges at a speckle on the ground below.

In less than a moment, L can see that their target is another shinigami, but now his host is dropping like a stone. A hundred crime scene photos of people who have fallen to their deaths flash through L's eyes. He hyperventilates as the ground rushes up at them, unable to look away.

The shinigami hits the sand and rock with a crunch, catching itself with its feet and hands. L's arms rip loose from its torso. He slams into the sand hard enough to shatter bones in the real world. He groans, unable to draw air into his lungs.

The beast leaps away with another laugh and goes after the hand that lies far from L now. Like a dog, it grabs the hand in its teeth rather than its hands and carries it back to L.

L can't breathe to harangue or thank it, so he merely lies there, trying to make his lungs work again. The beast drops the hand on L's chest, leaves, and returns again with L's walking stick.

"There is your owner," the beast says with a nod at the humanoid in the near distance.

As abruptly as the madness took it, it seems to have receded. The beast squats calmly and watches the humanoid approach with an indecipherable expression. Its posture makes it look like longing when its eyeless face betrays nothing. The leash behind it dangles to the ground, useless without someone to control it.

L struggles to sit up, still straining to draw a breath. His bones should all be broken. It hurts like they are.

The shambling figure coming nearer is the stitched-up doll that L met earlier. Watching Zahya move is like fingernails on a chalkboard: unbearable. It is worse than watching the beast crawl like an animal. Zahya's shoulders and hips grind audibly in and out of socket during each laborious step, making it jerk spasmodically as it walks. It makes L grit his teeth and try not to watch, but the display is so grotesque that he can't look away for long even though it nauseates him. One arm is too short, the stump dangling from a worn leather sleeve. The open jacket that it wears still leaves exposed the hole in its chest.

L plucks the desiccated hand from where it rolled down to his stomach and clambers painfully to his feet. His lungs finally unhitch with the movement and he can gasp for breath. His legs tremble with pain as he tries to stay on his feet.

Now that Zahya is standing, it is almost as tall as L.

"What's this?" it rasps, the same sweet rot wafting over L as L proffers the hand wordlessly. "You're still human?"

It takes the hand from L and snaps it onto its wrist, grinding the bones back and forth until they are seated properly. L's stomach protests wildly. The flesh seemingly grows together, making L wonder at the necessity of stitches. Then the thing really looks up at him. L finds it hard to meet its eyes when they are lost under black ink and black hair.

"Sure you don't want to become one of us?" It chuckles, the sound wet in its throat. "Look at all you have to look forward to."

It touches L's face with that hand so recently replaced, and already it is warm and dry, alive again. L slaps it away in disgust.

It starts to turn toward the beast shinigami, its hips creaking with the motion. For the first time, L notices the Death Note is now hanging from its belt. Strange that the beast has none.

"Why are you special? What keeps you alive, if not a Death Note?" Zahya asks.

"The Shinigami King couldn't tell me," L lies, the words hard to speak around the ache in his chest and lungs. He bends and gropes for the walking stick, never thinking he would need to lean on it so soon.

"And he has always been forthcoming with answers," Zahya says bitterly. "Why do any of us exist?"

"Wait," L asks as the other turns away. "I'm looking for Ryuk or Redival."

"Why?" Zahya doesn't turn, the lank hair hiding its face. "Why would one of us interest you more than the others?"

"I heard of Ryuk on earth." And he's deeply connected to someone I should have forgotten about a long time ago, L thinks.

"I heard stories about him too. Him and his plaything Kira."

The beast shinigami makes a tiny whimper at the name, as if something pains it. Zahya ignores it.

The faintest breath of wind that made it miserable to breathe around Zahya finally shifts, and L finds that it is much easier to get air into his lungs.

"You heard about Kira?" L stops in the act of massaging his aching back. "Is Kira here?"

"Kira was a human, not a shinigami. He's as likely to be here as you are," Zahya chuckles darkly, and the beast whines again.

Ah! Hope. It hurts more than the searing ache from crunching into the ground. This is a needle going into L's chest, not unlike the heart attack that finished him off in Kira's treacherous arms.

L doesn't realize that his eyes have closed until a riot of creaking and snapping assaults his ears. Suddenly Zahya is there, right in his face with its stitched-together hands balled in L's shirt.

This close, L almost retches with the reek of it, like rotting flesh. It reminds him of the few times he inspected a corpse during his days on earth, all congealed blood and evil-smelling stomach fluids. He drops his staff and grabs Zahya's fingers, attempting to bend them backwards to get it to release his shirt.

Zahya is far stronger than it looks, and it grins wickedly and reverses L's grip, almost crushing his fingers. L bites back a scream but leans back to make room for a kick. Zahya hauls him close and wraps L's own arms around him, trapping him against Zahya's chest. L mindlessly squirms away from the blunt points of Zahya's exposed ribs pressing into his skin.

Zahya buries its head against L's throat, and L kicks wildly, unable to put any force behind it when he can hardly touch the ground but unable to think of anything but vampires, as ludicrous as the idea is. The need to hide, to get away from this total invasion of his person is all he can think of. He waits for the pierce of teeth but only feels the brush of stitches along his hairline behind his ear.

Zahya inhales deeply.

"The others are wrong," he whispers, his face so close to L's that L looks away to keep the bile from crawling up his throat. "You smell like strawberries, not apples."

L tries to catch the blackened pits of Zahya's eyes to see if this monster is joking, but the expression on his face is almost wondering, thoughtful. L seizes the opportunity and stomps on his foot then sweeps the same foot behind Zahya's leg, but his stance is too strong for L to break.

Zahya chuckles and releases L. L stumbles and crumples to the ground.

"You think that with as much pain as I'm in, a little more will make a difference?" He rolls his shoulders as if to make a point with all the groaning and clicking that his bones make.

L grabs for his walking stick. He might not be as well trained with a staff, but he can defend himself with it. He flexes his fingers to get the feeling back into them. He might be dead, but he will not be manhandled so carelessly again by this pair of shinigami.

However, Zahya now only exudes sangfroid, not the briefly hungry interest he directed at L.

"The only torment here is boredom." Zahya says. "That and addictions, like Ryuk's obsession with apples."

"L, did you know gods of death love apples?" Light's little joke is apparently true.

"Ryuk is also very fond of games," Zahya finishes.

Games, L thinks, reflecting that his death resulted from a genius's boredom and a death god's games. What a dismal end to his illustrious career and identity.

At least fighting the genius was worth it.

Zahya turns away and motions the beast to its feet. Before L can think to ask anything more, Zahya has mounted the beast like a horse, and the thing has flown him away.

He wipes at his once-pristine shirt and arms to remove the charcoal dust that Zahya and the beast left behind.

Belatedly, L realizes that he too has come to think of Zahya as a 'he.' Gukku called him one when it brandished the hand but L had almost forgotten.

He doesn't know why the knowledge bothers him so.

Author's Note – This is an amusing little story that I had written the next chapter for years ago. It seemed like a shame not to edit it a little and share it.